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3D printed mirror array
- matteosb 5y agoThis reminds me of company called Leva. Check out this project https://www.leva.io/projects/kinetic-wall https://www.leva.io/projects/kinetic-wall
- Jimmc414 5y agoI'm wondering how feasible it would be to repurpose this code for a concentrated solar power setup.
- mrfusion 5y agoI was going to suggest you could use it as a home decoration to make a message everyday but it would only work one day a year?
- fudged71 5y agoIt's possible to create artificial light with parallel rays like the sun, you just need a parabolic dish mirror. So in theory yes you could do this at home for everyday projections, just not with the sun.
- saboot 5y agoYou'd need the mirror planes to be adjustable in the XY tilt directions. Seems doable though, would be a cool next project
- enchiridion 5y agoOr not? That’s an interesting challenge. Multiple messages depending on the light angle
- ansible 5y agoSort of the opposite of a digital sundial: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1068443 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1068443
- totetsu 5y agoNow how could we achieve the same thing with just origami? https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/features/origami.html https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/features/origami.html
- jstanley 5y agoExcellent. I wonder how practical it would be to put each mirror on a servo so that you can change the image in real time?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ortusdux 5y agoDepends on the desired scale - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nb8mM3uEIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nb8mM3uEIc
- nomel 5y agoThis is quite a bit different. DLP like projectors are binary: straight forward or somewhere away. The layout of the grid of mirrors matches the layout of the dots you can illuminate, in the image. Something like OP has would require some pretty serious angular precision.
- beecafe 5y agoYou could use holography/beamforming to steer a beam from a DLP, although it would be just a small % of the original power.
- nomel 5y agoI think the beautify of the mirror system is that it's direct, understandable/observable, and nice to look at by itself, even if it's not showing an image. It's elegant. If you use beam formers and DLPs, you're just making an overcomplicated DLP projector that's going to look like an overcomplicated DLP projector.
- beecafe 5y agoAbsolutely. And it'll keep working on a sandy beach far from any power source.
- thanatos519 5y agoAwesome! It's like a giant static DLP chip!
- diplodocusaur 5y agoYou are correct! This is essentially how office projectors work https://youtu.be/KpatWNi0__o?t=102 https://youtu.be/KpatWNi0__o?t=102
- harvie 5y agoThis is future of the street art. Mount it using liquid nails to some place that is hard to access and point it somewhere where lots of people will see it during rush hour. Eg.: You can install it in such way that parliament building will get defaced every day during lunch hours by mounting on near building or tall lamp post. Or maybe put it on your own roof, that way nobody can remove it :-)
- 123pie123 5y agolike the idea but how much sun does london really get?
- hobofan 5y agoEnough to allow a skyscraper to melt cars[0]. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675
- jacquesm 5y agoThat's a bit of a special case though, at 50 suns or so it doesn't require much for that effect. Great demo for solar concentrators though!
- Toxygene 5y agoWord of warning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_Teen_Hunger_Force#2007_Boston_bomb_scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_Teen_Hunger_Force#2007_Bo...
- _Microft 5y agoI might be getting old but this is the sort of magic by technology I would like to see more of in the world instead of using tech to try putting people into fake worlds in some metaverse.
- ampdepolymerase 5y agoThere is nothing special about this. This is the basis of all MEMS technology used in lidar. Some VR goggle designs probably contain MEMS parts too. It is disingenuous to complain about the metaverse business model while oohing and aahing over the exact same technology used to implement it.
- dang 5y agoCan you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying to avoid flamewars here, and I'm sure you can make your substantive points without that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- TheRealNGenius 5y agoI mean, I don't think the parent post was that substantive either. There is nothing in this submission that necessitates roping in the topic of the metaverse. They could have just left it as they found this tech interesting.
- jacquesm 5y agoIf you can't say something nice about a project like this then say nothing at all. To belittle it is classless.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoAgreed. I really, really hate it when someone shares something cool they've made and HN people dump on it. I'm not saying that HN has to be all mindless cheerleading, but non-constructive criticism is not helpful to anyone (except the critic's ego, maybe).
- alhirzel 5y agoReminds me of Mitsuba 2; see Caustic Design at about 3 mins into the first video: http://rgl.epfl.ch/publications/NimierDavidVicini2019Mitsuba2 http://rgl.epfl.ch/publications/NimierDavidVicini2019Mitsuba...
- _Microft 5y agoThat's impressive. Here someone created a slab of glass that turns the caustics into a picture of his cat: https://mattferraro.dev/posts/caustics-engineering https://mattferraro.dev/posts/caustics-engineering (discovered via: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29063617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29063617 )
- diplodocusaur 5y ago'two minute papers' has a link to a free course on how to do this. I haven't checked them out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-eIKkyAco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-eIKkyAco Note: the title says 3d printing but it's actually milling acryllic sheets, not SLA
- nazgul17 5y agoFantastic! I love the creativity that went into this.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- akomtu 5y agoThis idea will have many unexpected applications. For example difficult to remove signs projected to flat surfaces.
- makeitdouble 5y agoAn application close to this idea: IKEA arrow signs projected on the floor. They need no painting, floor needs no protection or treatment and they won’t disappear until the light is off.
- zestyping 5y agoYou can do that just with a mirror in the shape of an arrow. Or a mirror with a negative arrow painted on it :)
- makeitdouble 5y agoYes. It's pretty interesting they went the "projector" way. I guess there is an issue of the arrow not being lit enough to stand out if the mirror flatly reflects ambient light, it would need to focus a lot more light, which would also make it much bigger. It might also be that the additional light from the arrow is just beneficial in that specific case.
- xmonkee 5y agoThis is so adorable
- matmatmatmat 5y agoSeriously, can it get much better than this?
- nikkinana 5y agoThat's sweet except he's a faggot.
- dcroley 5y agoThis idea looks like something you could commercialize!
- ape4 5y agoThe wedding is going to be over the top
- a_lost_needle 5y agoWell, it definitely looks like it will be pretty gay! :)
- jacquesm 5y agoWhat an absolutely amazing piece of work, and even more incredible that it worked the first time. If I had to do something like that it would take me at least three tries to get it to work and quite possibly more than three. Math, 3D printing, love, what's not to like :) And congratulations!
- codazoda 5y agoEven simple stuff takes me multiple tries. I don’t know how any engineer gets a design right the first time. I can build it in a 3D design app, look all around it, and STILL see something in the prototype that was not obvious in the design.
- jacquesm 5y agoI just built something I had to get right on the first try because messing it up would be more than a little dangerous. Endless fitting and testing and re-thinking before committing to building it. A little cheating was involved, I built a 1/17th scale test setup to ensure that all the electrical bits would work.
- jcmontx 5y agoCool af! Congrats
- diplodocusaur 5y agoThere is an artist (at least) that uses arrays of motorized parts to create a similar effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV8v2GKC8WA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV8v2GKC8WA mesmerizing
- mlok 5y agoThis is quite close too : https://prusalab.cz/projekty/reflexe/ https://prusalab.cz/projekty/reflexe/ (Petr Vacek & Adam Cigler / Prusalab / Czech Republic)
- qwertox 5y agoThank you for linking this.
- abrookewood 5y agoThat's fascinating - the artist does everything himself from fabrication to design. Looks incredible.
- jonahx 5y ago"The electronics and the mechanics and the fabrication took me a year. Then it took me an afternoon to program the computer to actually activate it"
- arketyp 5y ago
- jonas21 5y agoBears a striking resemblance to the James Webb Space Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
- bmsleight_ 5y agoWow how wonderfully geeky romantic. Did he say yes ? [Edit the sand said yes!]
- jhgb 5y agoI'm wondering if a similar effect couldn't be done using a continuous surface and just silvering it. I saw something similar done with refraction but can't remember the URL now. 3D printers definitely have higher resolution than mirrors of this size.
- jacquesm 5y agoIf you're willing to spend a lot of money on silver then probably yes. After all the height differences are substantial and silver isn't cheap. 3D printers resolution sucks in comparison to the mirrors, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoAluminizing it would be way cheaper than silver. For that matter, you could probably glue down pieces of aluminized mylar rather than using mirrors, since you all you need is a spot of light, not a full-blown mirror image. Aluminized mylar is pretty cheap!
- jacquesm 5y agoBare aluminum would oxidize in a very short time to something dull. It would still reflect light but not quite as good. Aluminized Mylar would definitely work, but that's not bare aluminum but aluminum with a shiny layer over it to keep it clean. Very useful stuff, I built huge solar concentrators with it. 1000 suns on an area the size of a poststamp. You can do some pretty crazy stuff with that kind of energy density.
- kragen 5y agoYou might need a micron of thickness of aluminum or silver. This piece looks like it's about 300 mm x 300 mm, which would work out to 90 mm³ of silver (or aluminum), which at 10.5 g/cc would work out to 950 mg of silver. Silver currently costs US$25.25 per troy ounce, so this would be 0.12¢ (US$0.0012) of silver, or somewhat less of aluminum. Both silver and aluminum will tarnish if exposed to the air, silver more slowly but much more completely. The process for silvering things is a lot easier to do at small scales than the process for aluminizing them. Aluminizing things normally requires a fairly good vacuum, and, moreover, a vacuum chamber large enough to fit whatever you're aluminizing. Perhaps someone will come up with some kind of convenient wet process for doing it but I'm not hoding my breath. By contrast, you can silver glass with Tollens' test, using distilled water, silver nitrate, concentrated aqueous ammonia, hydroxide of potassium or sodium, and a reducing sugar (almost any sugar that isn't sucrose, for which you can substitute numerous other chemicals, such as formaldehyde, formate, isopropanol, or tartrate). This is commonly done as a classroom demonstration in chemistry labs nowadays, and it was done on a large scale almost 150 years ago for telescope mirrors. Nitric acid is beneficial but, unless you have to make the silver nitrate, not essential. This is why it's much more common for amateur telescope makers to silver their mirrors rather than aluminizing them.
- fgblanch 5y agoThis project is soooo amazing! Congrats! Great piece of art and engineering
- HarHarVeryFunny 5y agoCool! Makes a nice object to hang on the wall too! I wonder if there's any types of filament that could be used to print a mirror-like surface good enough to work ?
- CTDOCodebases 5y agoSuch a cool idea. Now you have a momento to remember the day that can be hung on a wall.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoVery cool. In a less-artistic application, you could use this idea to print multiple sections that could be assembled to make a large pseudo-parabolic mirror for a solar concentrator. You wouldn't get telescope-quality imaging, certainly, but if all you needed was to concentrate a lot of light on a small space (for a steam generator, say) it should work fine. Congrats on the upcoming wedding!
- meigwilym 5y ago> that could just bring this idea into existence from nothing but a bit of code and some basic principles of physics. You're putting yourself down here. But congrats on the proposal!
- quickthrower2 5y agoThis made my day! Nothing technical to say sorry!
- jcun4128 5y agoThat's mad creative, like those solar clock things
- zw123456 5y agoArchimedes would be proud! And you should be too! Congrats, and thank you so much for sharing this, it totally made my day.
- colinmegill 5y agoCongrats! Wonderful!
- tarikozket 5y agohats off
- intrasight 5y agoI wonder if rather than "additive" you could do similar with "subtractive" fabrication. Take a wooden board and cnc mill and cut circles on the surface at the appropriate orientations.
- ruined 5y agogenerally it's just a matter of slicing the same source STL file to the appropriate gcode, but in this case the particular geometry (lots of sharp concave angles) seems more suited to additive manufacturing.
- serf 5y agoyes, but it'd require a redesign or very special tooling. that spacing between each mirror 'pedestal' is fairly deep, it'd require a very long end-mill or a five axis machine to be able to get into those crevices. it'd be trivial to carve the needed angle into each 'mirror pedestal' , but the current design doesn't support the premise very well.. still, doable.
- intrasight 5y agoHow about this approach. Just have a collection of wooden dowels with one end milled to be concave at one of 20 or 30 angles. Then you can assemble whatever mirror array you want by selecting and positioning the appropriate dowels. Or sold as a kit made out of plastic hex shaped rods that snap together.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoDid you try sinking any ships with this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_glass
- azinman2 5y agoThis is very cool. Perhaps I'll similarly do a writeup of my nerdy marriage trick -- I created custom 3D chocolate bars with our faces on them to hand out to guests. It required a ton of iteration and a lot of chocolate work (which is really hard!), but was really special in the end.
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y agoI would love an array of them in the style of old airport signages could be an amazing effect. Great work.
- jmd42 5y agoThis rocks, and congrats!
- mhb 5y agoDid he say yes?
- wopsahl 5y agoHas anyone seen the mirror array that was built with ~2"X2"stainless steel mirrors that are attached to a sheet of blue spring steel that was laser cut as a compliant mechanism for each mirror so when an offset wheel on a threaded bolt behind the mirror is turned it progressively tilts the mirror from a minimal angle to a maximum angle? Each bolt was then driven using a single stepper motor(one mirror adjustment motor for the whole array, kind of a budget build, instead of one motor per mirror)on a belt driven x-y frame. The mirror array was positioned horizontally 2' off the floor of a museum with works of art, a camera is then pointed at an angle near eyelevel probably 20' away from the array. Then you choose an art work and the mirrors are rotated through their angles and when that pixel(mirror) reflects the color back to the camera that matches the art work you chose it stops moves to the next mirror and then repeats until there is a full image made of reflected light. Obviously the final image is pixelated but roughly resembles the original work. I saw this years ago and can no longer find any of it online. I've tried every search combination I could think of. Some of these details might be wrong but I'm just going off memory here. Pls help
- snypher 5y agoIt sounds like a Danny Rozin piece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Rozin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Rozin Edit; I'm sure it could be https://www.smoothware.com/danny/mirrorsmirror.html https://www.smoothware.com/danny/mirrorsmirror.html
- wopsahl 5y agoThese are close but it was definitely horizontal these are vertical. Thank you for the links!!
- tdrdt 5y agoI have been thinking about this for some time: cylinders each attached to a motor. The glossy end of the cylinders is cut at an angle. The rotation of each cylinder dictates from which direction light is reflected.
- milofeynman 5y agoWhat happens if you point all the mirrors at the same spot? Fire?
- primitivesuave 5y agoArchimedes famously used mirrors to burn a fleet invading Syracuse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_glass
- blunte 5y agoNice. Now step 2: individually articulated mirrors :)
- mlatu 5y agoThat is so nice, thank you for sharing
- ttrbls 5y agohttps://bit.ly/3kvet7n https://bit.ly/3kvet7n
- chilling 5y agoAbsolutely mesmerizing work!
- tomaskafka 5y agoAt a risk of spoiling a startup idea, I'd love a set of motorized mirrors I could put on a roof of a house on the other side of the street from me, that would send sunlight to the eastern side of my flat during the afternoon :).
- mym1990 5y agoIt’s like the Uber of renting other peoples roofs! (I’ve been watching way too much shark tank the past 3 days…)
- nayuki 5y agoSomeone else's work that alters light transmission (instead of reflection): https://mattferraro.dev/posts/caustics-engineering https://mattferraro.dev/posts/caustics-engineering